Had to de-ignore just to see who will be reading anything I might post, and looks like they are at it again: Stats and no links. No idea where the numbers are coming for, or many of the charts that were posted. They called on this
again and again and it never changes. On the rare occasions when they do cite a source? That source has the same lack of citations! As we shall see presently, but...
It is too bad we will never be able to have a serious conversation-- and trust me, we never will, because things have been said here that can never be unsaid.
But it's a shame, because if we rolled back the clock, there might have been some common ground. And some of Putin's useful idiots might tighten up their thinking a bit about both wars-- the war on whatever's left of democracy by the Russians, and the war on the virus being waged by the rest of us who had some hope-- even if we knew the odds were long-- that basic human decency might inspire us to cooperate in the face of a common threat.
What's obvious to any HCP and probably everyone else: The vaccine is not working nearly as well for the Omicron variants as it did for the A and B variant-- depressing, but not a huge surprise, that was a lot of us were saying in January. It was also clear even last July that it didn't even work that well for Delta, though it was better. I don't think anyone is even arguing about that, so that could have been a starting point for a serious discussion-- a missed opportunity.
And I think the EU is wise to tap the brakes r.e. a second booster. I never wanted to get endless vaccinations, that was never my plan, anyway. Third missed opportunity for the interesting discussion we could have had if some of us actually
meant it when we said we only wanted honest debate instead of trolling.
The first plan would have been for everyone to mask up,
so we didn't need a damn vaccine, and the second play would have been for everyone to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, as
I did, even though I always doubted it would wipe out the virus because there would be too many holdouts, and there might be new variants. It was worth trying-- it bought us some time, and it might have bought us a lot more.
But the people who sabotaged the plan are now complaining that it didn't work. If there's a better example of circular logic, I can't think of one.
Here's a quote from crypto-fascist attorney and useful idiot Daniel Horowitz's article about some "new Danish study" -- and, my Loyal Brothers and Sisters of the Electric Wheel, I suffered through
the whole article so you don't have to, and what a quivering pile of sh*t it is. The "Danish Study" was never named, no link was provided, so you can't check the research yourself and see if it was quoted out of context. Horowitz was BORN a troll.
Anyway, here's someone Horowitz quotes, but again, fails to identify:
"The fall from peak cases to the most recent data point is also interesting. Case rates in the unvaccinated, single dosed and the double dosed have all fallen approximately 45% since their respective peaks, however, case rates in the triple vaccinated have only fallen approximately 20% since their peak."
Okay, sure. I can easily believe that, and it is interesting! Hell yeah, I'd want to study that. But...
"This is rather concerning, as it suggests that we might find that the boosted population maintain a viral reservoir for Covid, ensuring that case rates take much longer to fall to trivial levels and hindering attempts to get society back to a post-Covid normal."
Yes, I think that is possible-- though
it's a completely different argument than antivaxers were making before, but hey, when I was 14 years old, I seized on any statistic I could find that supported my conclusion because I wanted to be right so much! That is why
people who actually know what they are talking about and have skin in the game are searching for these viral reservoirs and trying to determine their significance. That's been going on for years. Just because a virus hides somewhere doesn't mean it will be infectious... seems like a long shot, but not impossible, and sure, if that happened, that would be
kreepy as fuk.
But... these are 'respective' peaks that occurred at different times, so... isn't it also possible, and way more likely, that
the peak for the the triple vaxed was later, and occurred during surges of later variants that can evade the vaccine? And isn't comparing infection rates in New Zealand and Africa a totally fraudulent exercise
because they could have been facing totally different variants? Any suckers here who are gonna pay a nickel for that whopper?
One thing we've learned just in the last two months: Omicron B.1 and Omicron B.2 are
very, very different because... well, you can wander around and talk to people who were infected in both January and April, and they'll probably tell you that they had very different symptoms. What my patients are telling me is that B.2 is much more severe than B.1, but that's only one guy's clinical but anecdotal observation based on a small sample in a small community.
What's really... special... is Horowitz's crackpot theories about New Zealand! *Gasp* = "there is nowhere to escape the obvious fact that there were basically no COVID deaths until 2022" and he shows this chart of deaths peaking in mid April: "Well, in fact, New Zealand experienced nearly all of its deaths precisely
after all of this (mass vaccination) was accomplished in March 2022! And with the mildest of variants!"
Uh, no. The "mildest" variant so far was probably B.1., and even that killed people. Horowitz, actually, has no idea what variant peaked in New Zealand in mid April 2022, and neither do we, but if it was Omicron B.2, which is peaking in some places
right now, only a few weeks after the New Zealand Surge-- like where I am-- it's
a lot nastier than B.1. I have no trouble believing it killed a lot of vaccinated people in New Zealand, that's exactly what I'd expect because B.2 evades vaccination, boosting,
and even evades immunity from prior infection with multiple variants, and I have witnessed this with my own eyes.
Just in case any new members are taking out kommode kommandos seriously, here's what I found for Ontario.
Source: Ontario Public Health
Link:
https://www.publichealthontario.ca/...nfirmed-cases-post-vaccination.pdf?sc_lang=en